Certain supporters of the bill are also egregiously out of line in ascribing racist or nativist motives to opponents, who at worst can be accused of striving to preserve the unique American culture, which, by the way, prides itself in being color blind and guaranteeing equal protection under the law irrespective of race or ethnicity.
Proponents are wrong and grossly irresponsible for downplaying the fiscal burden this bill will place on an already entitlement-beleaguered federal budget. While proponents are busy quibbling over the semantic appropriateness of the opponents' use of the term "amnesty," they are conveniently sidestepping the assaults on the rule of law the bill will entail. And while proponents are accusing opponents of mischaracterizing the bill, it is the opponents who are pretending the bill will reduce family-based, assimilation-unfriendly immigration and increase merit-based, assimilation-friendly immigration, when it will do precisely the opposite.
Proponents are firing epithets at opponents and accusing them of emotionalizing the issue, but again, the reverse is true. The proponents are the ones avoiding the facts and the very real concerns voiced by opponents. Many conservative proponents are blinded to real dangers in the bill by their monomaniacal attachment to economic growth at any cost. Others seem to have a romantic fixation with our heritage of immigration and wrongly interpret opposition to illegal and anarchically unregulated immigration as a betrayal of our national compact.
Opponents of this bill are not anti-immigrant, nativists, enemies of business or backwoods restrictionists. They are Americans who are fighting to preserve the unique American culture and will not be intimidated by the politically correct tactics and race-baiting of many of the proponents. At the very least they are fighting to preserve: 1) a cultural commitment to the principles embodied in the greatest constitution ever written and adopted by man and 2) a societal consensus in the absolute moral values undergirding that instrument, which are inspired by a belief in God and the dignity of human beings created in His image.
Opponents are acting in good faith, and they deserve better -- and so does America.